INTRODUCTION

This paper is an attempt to
comprehend some aspects
of the phenomenon of the origins and development of a nationalism,
defined here as an articulated 'state of mind' or world view that
perceives the idea of the nation as central in people's lives, which
may or may not lead to action on the part of some or many members of a
nation,' and which may fail or succeed once it is put into practice in
the form of a 'national movement' (its success or failure being decided
by the goals of the movement).

The subjects of this study are
the Assyrians,
a Christian minority currently living on its native soil in Iraq, Iran,
Syria and Turkey, as well is in the diaspora in the West, particularly
in the United States. From the perspective of the regional political
observer of the Middle East, the Assyrians are a small and
insignificant minority. However, the recent history of this people,
numbering an estimated three million worldwide, and the momentous
economic, social and political transformations they have undergone,
provide data that is beneficial for the understanding of nationalism
and how it is that it comes to be adopted, as it were, by some or many
members of a collectivity.

The Assyrian case is analyzed using the theory of
nationalism
presented by Ernest Gellner in Thought (University of Chicago Press,
1964), which advances some important formulations about the development
of nationalism, as a sort of side effect of the processes of
industrialization and modernization.

Gellner's belief that nationalism is the child of
industrialization's impact on the world, it is held, is perhaps more
descriptive history rather than substance for a theory which grasps and
explains nationalism - though it does contribute, as shall be seen, a
good deal to the knowledge of how nationalism could develop - and did
develop in some cases. The Assyrian nationalist movement's growth, it
is held, was not a 'natural phenomenon, one flowing fairly inescapably'
from the conditions prevalent at the time, as Gellner asserts in
reference to the influence of the process of industrialism on
nationalism. Nor did it rely on the existence of a significant
proletarian class, which Gellner asserts is necessary for the formation
of a nationalism. Rather, Assyrian nationalism was the product,
initially of an incipient intelligentsia (which is defined by Gellner
as "a class which is alienated from society by the very fact of its [in
this case, Western] education"), and later a popular movement despite
its failure. Assyrian nationalism was an ideology learned from
neighboring nations - mainly the Armenians - and Westerners who came
into contact with the Assyrians - Americans, Russians, French and
British - and who influenced the Assyrians socially, culturally and
politically. Initially, Assyrian nationalism existed within small
intellectual circles in the town of Urmia, and later became a more
popular ideology due to the uprooting factors of the First World War.

Today, the Assyrian national movement is a complex
phenomenon that
involves varying groups of people and geographical settings tied
together ideologically but operating within varying environments and
within varying socio-political contexts. It deserves systematic study
on various levels: psychological, social, and political. This, however,
is unfortunately out of the scope of this study.

BRIEF HISTORY

I: Nestorians, Chaldeans and Jacobites; The Sects of a Nation

The Assyrians, Aramaic speaking Christians of
northern Mesopotamia,
may be categorized into two denominational and linguistic groupings;
the "East Syrians" (members of the Church of the East - the Nestorians
- and their Uniate brethren, the Chaldeans), and the "West Syrians"
(members of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch and Syrian Catholics,
an offshoot of the former) There are additionally smaller clusters of
Catholics and Protestants who converted from the above churches largely
after the late eighteenth century, due to Western missionary activity.
The Maronite Church of Lebanon, which is a Uniate church, is an
offshoot from the Syrian Church, and possesses a liturgy that is almost
indistinguishable from the Syrian Orthodox (and Syrian Catholics) but
it is outside of the scope of this study.

Generally, two schools of thought addressed
this issue: the school of Antioch and that of Alexandria. Whereas the
school of Alexandria concerned itself more with theology, the school of
Antioch emphasized historical data. Nestorius, a fifth century
Byzantine bishop of Constantinople, adhered to a Christological
doctrine that originated in the Antiochene school, and developed
substantially by two figures, Diodorus of Tarsus and his pupil Theodore
of Mopsuestia. Little is known of Diodorus, but the teachings of
Theodore show that it was he who gave the basic form to the teachings
of Nestorius.2

Theodore taught that for the sake of humanity,
Jesus suffered as a human, that Jesus had a complete humanity as well
as divinity, and that this did not lead to two Christs but a union of
human and divine, an "indwelling of the word."

Thus there results neither any confusion of the
natures nor any untenable division of the person; for our account of
the natures must remain unconfused, and the person must be recognized
as indivisible.3

After Nestorius was declared a heretic and
condemned by a consensus of Western religious and secular leaders, many
of his followers and sympathizers, persecuted in the Byzantine empire,
found refuge among the Christians of Mesopotamia and Persia, whose
rulers found it politically expedient to tolerate and protect them.5 Thus
Christians who remained in the Byzantine
Empire, where the city of Antioch was situated, and had chosen, or were
coerced, to condemn Nestorius and his teachings as heretical became
attached to what later became the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Only one generation after the condemnation of Nestorius, the Syrian
Orthodox Church followed Monophysitism, a view to the extreme of
Nestorianism, virtually denying the humanity of Christ. The adherents
of this view, led by Dioskorus, Patriarch of Alexandria (444-454),
persuaded Theodosius II, the dying Byzantine emperor, to hold a second
Ephesian Council in 449. Known as the "Robber Council of Ephesus,"6 during
which bishops were bribed and physically
forced to comply with Monophysitism, it was eventually condemned, as
was Dioskorus, by the new Emperor Marcian (450-457). Yet despite its
condemnation, Monophysitism thrived in Syria and Egypt.7

The Syrian Orthodox Church was, and is, also
known as the Jacobite Church, so named after Yacoub Bar Addai (Jacob
Baradeus, c.500 AD), an early pillar of the Syrian Church. The Syrian
Orthodox Church carried on its activities mostly in Syria and northern
Mesopotamia (Assyria) . It was thus geographically limited mostly to
these two regions. The Church of the East (known as the Nestorian
church) , however, converted to its fold Persians, Arabs, Indians,
Tartars, Mongols, Chinese and other Asian peoples. At the time of the
Islamic conquest of the Fertile Crescent, there was no other
significant church contending with the Church of the East for Christian
theological hegemony in Asia.8

The Muslim conquest of the Fertile Crescent, in
effect, saved the Middle Eastern "heretical" churches, both Nestorians
and Monophysites, from the persecutions of the Byzantine emperors. Like
the Persian rulers before them, the Arabs found it advantageous to have
Christians within their realm that were at odds with the Roman emperors
of Byzantium. "The hearts of the Christians rejoiced over the
domination of the Arabs - may God strengthen it and prosper it," wrote
one Nestorian chronicler some centuries after the Islamic invasion.9

The new conquerors also discovered early on the
invaluable service Christians rendered to society as artisans,
physicians, merchants, scholars and tax collectors, and treated them
well in most cases, and in good times. Nestorians and Jacobites were
granted civil recognition, which the Byzantines had not granted them, a
step that allowed for the establishment of numerous churches and
monasteries in Syria and Mesopotamia, and the subsequent development of
a culture and traditions increasingly foreign to the Byzantines.

During the invasions of the Crusades, beginning
in the eleventh century, the stability of Christian and Muslim
relations were disrupted, leaving behind "a legacy of mistrust and
antagonism that would be revived in modern times, 11 according to
historian John Joseph.10 However, unlike
the Armenians and the Maronites, who had formed military alliances with
the Crusades, the Jacobites and Nestorians did not, and thus suffered
less at the hands of vengeful Muslims once the Crusades were defeated.
Nevertheless, their sociopolitical position eroded.

Inter-Christian rivalries, periodic
persecutions by Muslim rulers, and, finally, the Mongol invasions of
Timur in particular, devastated the Nestorian and Jacobite Churches.
Timur's massacres and pillages of all that was Christian reduced the
religion to an almost irrelevant state in the Middle East.

At the end of the reign of Timur, the
Nestorians had almost been eradicated. In two locations, however, they
survived; in the provinces of Assyria [which had retained its name in
Christian] (in the districts of Beth Garme, Adiabene, Arbil, Karkh
dlbeth Seluq [Kirkuk], Nuhadra [Dohuk], Nineveh [Mosul], etc.), where
the church had acquired much of its nourishment, and in the Hakkari
mountains of Ottoman Kurdistan, where the Assyrian Nestorians lived
largely an isolated existence until being evicted by Kurds and Turkish
troops during the First World War. Additionally, a meager number of
Indian Nestorians remained faithful in the Malabar district in southern
India. All of the other diocese of the Church of the East were lost
forever.

Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the,
Jacobite Bar Hebraeus found "much quietness" in his diocese in
Mesopotamia. Syria's diocese, he wrote, was "wasted."11

In 1553 the Church of the East met more
misfortune in the form of a split that eventually left one side under
Roman Catholic domination. Over a period of four centuries, the
Catholic (Uniate) side of the Church of the East, the Chaldean Church -
as it came to be known -eventually grew to outnumber its parent church,
and was recognized as a separate Millet by the Ottoman Porte. In Iraq
today, Assyrian Chaldeans outnumber Assyrian Nestorians roughly two to
one.

Among the Syrian Orthodox Jacobites, there was
also a split that resulted in Roman domination as well. Unlike the
Nestorian case, the Catholics among the Jacobites remain relatively
small.

We will discuss conversions to Protestant
churches in the next section.

II

At the turn of the twentieth century, Aramaic
speaking Assyrians; Nestorians, Chaldeans and Jacobites may be
categorized into geographical and religious segments or populations.
Chaldeans and Nestorians, the 'East Syrians' referred to earlier, lived
in the Mosul villayet, the Hakkari mountains north of it, and in Urmia
to the northeast. The Jacobites and their offshoots the Syrian
Catholics, both 'West Syrians, I lived largely in northeastern Syria
and southeastern Turkey, west of the Hakkari mountains in the area of
Tur Abdin. Due to geographical difficulties, there was little
interaction between these various Christian communities of common
cultural and ethnic origins.

Members of the Church of the East, Nestorians,
lived primarily in the Hakkari mountains of southeastern Turkey, and in
the Urmia region of Northwest Iran (Urmia's Nestorians had for the most
part become Protestants and Catholics, with only a minority still
retaining their ancient faith. Nevertheless, Protestant Assyrians
identified with their ancient church). The Assyrian Nestorians of the
Hakkari district, like the Kurds with whom they lived, were tribal in
social structure, with each tribe under the jurisdiction of a Malik
(chief, or Kurdish Agha), who was subject to the Patriarch of the
Church of the East. The Patriarch, in theory, was a subordinate of the
Amir of the Hakkari, a Kurd.12

The largest Assyrian tribe, the Tyari, lived
in a district which accommodated over seventy villages, each with its
own rayis (village headman). Along with other Assyrian and Kurdish
tribes in the Hakkari mountains, the Tyari were 'semi-independent'.
They did not pay tax directly to the Ottoman government, were seldom -
if ever - in contact with Ottoman officials, and swore allegiance to
the Mar Shimun, patriarch of the Church of the East, who lived in the
tiny village of Qudshanus in the Hakkari. Mar Shimun ruled his flock
through traditional authority and by being a mediator between the
various tribes. Although the Nestorians possessed the characteristics
of a millet, a religious minority, they were not officially considered
one in Ottoman records.

Generally, Assyrian inhabitants of the
mountains lived a meager existence. A modest number had marketable
trades, such as weaving and bricklaying, and some, in particular
members of the Jilu tribe, were world travelers who returned to their
mountains with exotic gifts from Europe and America.

After having made contacts with British and
Russian representatives during the latter part of nineteenth century,
the Patriarch Mar Shimun was hopeful that political and eventually
military protection would soon reach the Assyrians. In 1843, Mar Shimun
sought the assistance of the British in endorsing his wish to be
recognized and confirmed as the sole civil ruler of the tribal areas of
the Hakkari, which he was in reality, independent of any Kurdish Amir
and subject only, and directly, to the Sultan. This wish, however, did
not materialize.13

The Nestorians of Azerbayjan were, unlike
their Hakkari brethren, subjects of Iranian authorities, or, in unusual
cases, of Kurdish lords. Most lived in villages that surrounded the
main town, earning their subsistence by cultivating the fertile plain
that yielded much-coveted orchards and vineyards. Since villagers were
part of a loose feudal system, they were expected to pay their village
master (Agha) part of their harvest as well as two days' labor annually.14 Despite
the payments the villagers made to their
Agha, they were expected to defend themselves from the periodic raids
of Kurdish mountaineers. The villagers, as Christians, also suffered
inferior social and legal status and often lived in fear of the Muslim
populace. The Nestorians who lived in the highlands of Tergawar,
Margawar, and Bradost, to the west of Urmia, were sedentary
pastoralists.15
Although the
majority of the Nestorians in and around Urmia had, at the onset of the
First World War, become converts to Western and Russian churches (that
considered the Nestorian doctrine heretical), they nevertheless did not
completely sever their ties to their former Patriarch, and often sent
annual contributions to him to his village in the Hakkari mountains.16

Members of the Chaldean Church, Uniate
Catholics, lived in and around the Mosul Villayet. Like the Nestorians
of Urmia, the Chaldeans lived in Villages and towns and were non-tribal
in social structure. Villages were relatively substantial in size, the
largest of which was, and still is, Tell Kepe ('Mound of Rocks' in
Aramaic). The Chaldeans were subject to the governor of Mosul and other
lesser Ottoman officials. The Chaldean patriarch, whose official seat
was in Mosul, was both the religious and secular leader of his people.
Today, Chaldeans are the largest Assyrian sect in Iraq.17

The Orthodox Jacobites, like the Chaldeans,
were largely nontribal and subordinate to Ottoman officials, with whom
they were in constant contact. Numbering about 250,000 before the War,
they were, as other Syriac speaking peoples, under the jurisdiction of
their patriarch, who was finally represented in the Sublime Porte in
1882. Their geographical centers were Diarbakir, with six villages;
Mardin; Mosul, with five villages (which were intermingled with
Chaldean villages) ; Aleppo; Harpoot, with fifteen villages; Edessa,
with fifty villages; and Tur Abdin, their center and stronghold, with
over one hundred and fifty villages.18

Although illiteracy was widespread among
Assyrians in the Ottoman empire, the Jacobites and Chaldeans were, as a
rule, relatively more literate and cosmopolitan than the Nestorians,
who were largely geographically isolated. With the increase of
missionary assistance, however, the Nestorians of Urmia established a
great number of schools and began to publish the very first periodical
in all of Persia, Zahreera d'Bahra (Ray of Light), as early as 1848.

Assyrian Nestorian ethnicity and culture, in
general, were considerably more pronounced and novel than in the case
of the Jacobites (both the Orthodox and the Catholics) and the
Chaldeans, due to their geographical and socioeconomic isolation. Among
the Jacobites, Arabic sounding names such as Fath Allah, 'Abd al Karim,
'Abd al Masih and so on, were widely prevalent. Such names were unknown
to Nestorians, who used biblical or traditional names. The Chaldeans
and Jacobites were generally more economically dependent on Turkish and
Arab authorities. Such factors, along with historical upheavals to be
encountered, aided the Nestorians in forming a more solidified cultural
community and well-defined and separate ethnic/national identity. The
Jacobites and Chaldeans, on the other hand, were more irresolute as to
their own ethno-cultural uniqueness. It is not uncommon to encounter
Chaldean and Jacobite leaders who refer to themselves and their people
as Arabs, rather than as Assyrians.19

III

With Russia gaining a dominant position in
eastern Anatolia and northwestern Iran early in the nineteenth century,
there resulted a transformation in the position of the Christians of
the area.

By the 1860s, the Armenians, who were
neighbors of the Assyrians, began to acquire a cosmopolitanism and a
strong national consciousness. A number of Armenians returned from
Europe and soon translated the literature of the French revolution,
among them Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, into their language. They
were, in the words of one historian, "experiencing a literary and
national renaissance."20

In their zeal to strengthen Christianity in
Asia, American evangelical missionaries did much to buttress the social
and economic position of the Armenians in Anatolia. They established
missionary institutions such as churches, hospitals, dispensaries, and
schools of all grades in such places as Van, Erzerum, Bitlis, Mardin,
Kharput, among others. Institutions of higher learning soon emerged as
well. In Kharput, where a community of Jacobites lived, the Euphrates
College was established in 1876. It was in this college that one of the
earliest Assyrian nationalists among the Jacobites, Professor Ashur
Yusuf (1858-1915), was educated and later taught.

Assyrian intellectuals were well aware of the
advances being made by the Armenians, as well as other ethnic groups
within the Ottoman empire, and often sought to emulate them. As we
shall discover in the pages ahead, this was particularly true among the
Assyrians of Urmia, who, under the prevailing rivalries of their
various newly adopted churches, were becoming increasingly aware of the
necessity to secularize their community, and later nationality.
Importantly as well, they were acquiring a Western education and an
awareness about the Western world through the increase in communication
and printing.

Unlike the Jacobites and Chaldeans, who
remained neutral, the Nestorians did not. On September 18, 1914, the
Russian Consul in Urmia, Vedeniski, along with his military
attaché, Colonel Andreviski, promised the 'Assyro-Chaldeans'
(Nestorians and Chaldeans) autonomy if they would join the ranks of the
allies. Thousands of young future soldiers paraded the streets and
demonstrated their support for the allies, pulling the German flag down
and destroying it. In the middle of April, 1915, after being both lured
and pressured by Russian and British representatives, and enduring a
number of Turkish and Kurdish attacks, Nestorian maliks, under the
direction of the Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun, decided the time was
ripe to ally themselves formally with the Russians, who re-entered and
took control of Urmia in May, 1915.

By October of 1915, the position of the
Nestorian mountaineers became vulnerable. After having fiercely fought
off countless attacks by Turkish troops and Turkish armed Kurdish
irregulars, the Nestorians, severely in need of arms and supplies, were
unable to hold their defenses. Led by the Patriarch of the Church of
the East, Mar Benyamin Shimun, the Nestorian mountaineer irregulars,
along with their families, made a hasty retreat from their mountain
strongholds down to Russian controlled Urmia. Passing through hostile
territory, they lost thousands of lives, endured hardships and
sufferings, but eventually made it to Urmia.

Although the Nestorian Assyrians, both the
natives of Urmia and the Hakkari mountaineers, were able to take over
Urmia and form a town council under the leadership of their patriarch
Mar Benyamin Shimun, the intensity of Turkish, Kurdish and Azari
attacks on Assyrian positions soon took their toll. Also, early in
1918, the Assyrians incurred a further setback as the Patriarch Mar
Benyamin Shimun was assassinated, under orders of the Iranian
authorities, by Kurdish Agha Simko. The Assyrians were cut off from the
Russians and surrounded from all sides. On August 20, 1918, the panic
stricken people of Urmia gathered what they could of their belongings
and fled southward to reach Hamadan in central Iran, where the British
promised to assist them. Over 15,000 men, women and children perished
from massacre, disease and famine before reaching safety in Hamadan.
From Hamadan, British troops assisted in transporting the refugees to
camps set up in central Iraq, mostly in Ba'quba. The Nestorian
Assyrians were to remain here, waiting to return to their homes, or to
secure a favorable outcome of a new settlement arranged by the British
authorities inside Iraq.

Agha Petros, the Assyrian general who had,
under the authority of the Patriarch Mar Benyamin Shimun, led the
Assyrian forces and irregulars against the Turks and Kurds, proposed a
plan to form an Assyrian fighting force from the refugees in Balquba
and to retake Assyrian villages abandoned during the War. Sir Arnold
Wilson, then the British Civil Commissioner in Mesopotamia, with much
reluctance, allowed Petros to establish the force (as did Sir Percy
Cox, who replaced Wilson later), and even aided the troops with some
rifles.

"It was interesting," noted Lt. Col. R. S.
Stafford, with dissatisfaction, "to observe how rapidly the Assyrians
picked up the new ideas which just after the war deluded so many people
in an exhausted world. Their hopes of reviving the ancient Assyrian
Empire rose high. And as the days passed their claims grew more and
more expansive."23

No one among the Assyrians, of course, ever
realistically sought to realize anything resembling the Assyria of old.
Agha Petros and his supporters, however, perceived an opportunity to
gather Assyrians (mostly Nestorians -- but also Chaldeans and Jacobites
and even non-Muslim Yazidies, some of whom joined the Assyrian force)
in one area, in a time of relative confusion on the part of the Turkey
and England. The Assyrians were now, due in no little part to their war
experiences, more cohesive than before, and were receptive to the idea
of establishing something resembling a state.

By October, 1920, the Assyrian troops began to
advance north from the village of Aqrah through Kurdish territory,
largely unopposed. They soon fell into disarray, however, as a large
faction of the mountaineers rebelled against Petros and took an
alternate rout to their former territories - instead of proceeding with
the main body of troops. Unable to continue, Petros and his loyal
troops returned empty handed. After another try at a plan for Assyrian
statehood, this time in cooperation with the French in Syria, Petros
was exiled by the British to France, where he died.

Mar Eshai Shimun, the Patriarch who succeeded
Mar Rouel Shimun, the successor to the assassinated Mar Benyamin
Shimun, was a young man of about twenty when he was confronted with the
task of negotiating with Britain and Iraq on behalf of his people, as
the British mandate was nearing its end in Iraq in 1932. Concerned
about the end of the British mandate, and not knowing what would befall
their people once the British troops had withdrawn from Iraq, leaders
of the Assyrians were uneasy. In response to these tensions, Mar Eshai
Shimun called a meeting of Assyrian notables in October, 1931, in
Mosul, and petitioned Britain and the League of Nations to find a
solution to the Assyrian question. Mar Shimun then ordered the Assyrian
Levies, serving as the bulk of British military power in Iraq, to halt
their active status until some sort of agreement was reached. In
addition, the Patriarch, in conjunction with Assyrian bishops and
maliks, had prepared a plan for the concentration of the whole Assyrian
nation in the Dohuk/Amadiyah area, according to British sources24, where
they would be joined by the Assyrian
Levies, who had formerly served the British. A petition was forwarded
to the British, to be submitted to the League, in which the Assyrians
set out their demands as follows:

That the Assyrians should
be recognized as a nation domiciled in Iraq and not merely as an Iraqi
religious community.

That the Hakkiyari [Hakkaril Sanjaq in Turkey, in
which some of the Assyrians formerly lived, should be annexed to Iraq
and its villages restored to the Assyrians.

a) That, if this could not be done, a national
home should be found for the Assyrians which should be open to all the
Assyrians scattered in Iraq and to all other ex-Ottoman Assyrians from
all over the world.

b) That this new home should be arranged
to include the whole of the Amadiyah district and the adjacent parts of
the Zakho, Dohuk, and Aqrah districts, and that it should be made into
a sub-liwa under the Mosul liwa with its headquarters in Dohuk under an
Arab Mutasarrif and a British Advisor.

c) That existing settlement
arrangements should
be wholly revised by a committee provided with adequate funds, and that
the land chosen for Assyrian settlement should be registered in their
names as their own property.

d) That preferences should be
given to Assyrians
in the selection of officials for this sub-liwa ...25

Other demands focused on the
recognition of Mar Eshai Shimun as head of the Assyrians and financial
and administrative points for the proposed sub-liwa. King Faysal of
Iraq, who had formed good rapport with the Chaldean and Jacobite
hierarchy, visited Mar Shimun and sought to dissuade him from
continuing to internationalize the Assyrian question, and to seek a
solution with Iraq.26 Faysal failed in
his attempts to muffle Assyrian demands, a fact which angered other
members of his Ikha party government - who wanted to see a more
uncompromising position taken against the Assyrians. Unable to work out
any mutually satisfactory plan, the Iraqi government placed Mar Shimun
under arrest and sent troops against Assyrians loyal to him. After a
few skirmishes between Assyrian irregulars and the Iraqi army, in which
the Assyrians inflicted a number of casualties, the Army, under the
leadership of General Bakir Sidqi, and with the tacit approval of the
Ikha government, began to round up unarmed Assyrians for summary
executions. This episode ended with the massacre of hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of women, children and unarmed men (who had surrendered to
the Iraqi army) in and around the Assyrian village of Simele. A similar
massacre was planned by Bakir Sidqi for the Assyrian Chaldean village
of Alqush, north of Mosul, but failed due to the embarrassment caused
to the Iraqi government and Britain. Thousand of Assyrians, mostly
those who were loyal to Mar Shimun (and who had engaged in combat
against the Iraqi army) , had crossed the border of Iraq and settled in
French controlled Syria. These remained in northeastern Syria and
formed a relatively homogenous Nestorian community there.

With Mar Shimun exiled to
Cyprus and the British in compliance with the Iraqi government, the
Assyrian nationalist movement was halted.

While the voice of Assyrian
nationalists was silenced, and the world press became disinterested in
the Assyrians, the movement for unity and autonomy continued. Various
Assyrian secret organizations were formed in Iraq and in Syria. One of
the most prominent, "Khait Khait" (abbreviation for Assyrian Love and
Unity), had hundreds of members in the Habbaniya British military base
and settlement, where thousands of Assyrians came to work and live.27

It was most likely this group
that submitted to American diplomats visiting Iraq in 1945 a petition
entitled the Assyrian Problem. It was similar to other petitions in
that it first sought recognition and then appealed to the West - in
this case to the United States -for various forms of political
assistance. The petitioners asked that

(a) We may be
considered a separate and distinct people (nation) which joined the
Allies in both wars and made great sacrifices losing its political
Autonomous Status...28

No record of
any serious interest on the part of any American political body in the
Assyrians has been discovered, prior to and after this petition. Having
submitted a similar appeal to the newly established United Nations in
the same year in San Francisco with no success, the exiled Patriarch of
the Church of the East, Mar Eshai-Shimun finally decided to change his
policies and withdraw from nationalist politics formally. By 1948, Mar
Eshai Shimun decided that the Church would formally relinquish its
nationalistic role, and make direct contact with Middle Eastern
countries. The Patriarch contacted the representatives of the Iraqi,
Iranian, and Syrian governments in Washington, and subsequently called
upon his followers to live as loyal citizens wherever they resided in
the Middle East. Although church activity continued one way or another
to buttress nationalist sentiments, particularly in Iraq - where
political groups could not exist in any official capacity - the move by
Mar Eshai Shimun left a vacuum for another organized effort at the
forefront of the movement.

In 1968, the
Assyrian Universal Alliance was formed by mostly Iranian and American
Assyrians, a fact which led the Iraqi regime of Ahmed Hassan al Bakr to
conclude that the organization's demands were nothing more than a front
for a conspiracy by the Shah of Iran to undermine Iraqi unity, just as
the British had perpetrated upon Iraq earlier, again using the
Assyrians as their proxies. Regardless, for a few years, the AUA became
the central Assyrian organization worldwide, in particular for
Assyrians in the diaspora. While the AUA did manage to put forth some
practical demands upon the Iraqi government, its message to Assyrians
seemed to be concerned more with biblical prophecy than with political
practicality. It continued to insist, for instance, on a "national
home" for the Assyrians in north Iraq, despite the impossibility of
such a plan - evident to the central personalities of the AUA itself,
who were not surprised that it was never even considered by the Iraqi
government. In one of its articles on a political rally, the headline
read "Assyria is Coming back."29

The AUA,
despite its grandiose slogans, did become a gathering and unifying
force for nationalistic members of other Assyrian sects besides
Nestorians. It may be considered the first major Assyrian secular
organization with members from the Chaldean and Jacobite communities.
Two of its prominent members were Aprim Rayis and Ninos Aho, a Chaldean
and a Jacobite respectively.

Though the
Iraqi government of Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr did invite the AUA to discuss
its demands, no agreement was reached, and the leaders of the AUA,
among them Sam Andrews, its Secretary General, were eventually accused
of betraying the Assyrian cause by accepting payments by the Iraqis.
These accusations were made by Assyrians, and some in the AUA, and
caused the organization to split into various antagonistic factions.
Bakr's government did, in April of 1972, grant the "Syriac Speaking"
people (Al Natiqeen bilugha al Siryaniya) some cultural and religious
rights, and a pardon to the Assyrians who left Iraq in 1933, but these
acts were more rhetoric than substance. The organizations and
publications which were produced were so heavily monitored that they
often became the mouthpiece of the Ba'ath party.

Today, a
number of Assyrian political movements have rivaled, and surpassed the
popularity of the AUA. Foremost among these is the Assyrian Democratic
Movement, established in Iraq in 1979. It is a political party striving
for the cultural rights of Assyrians, and democratic rule for all
Iraqis. Armed and in the struggle to topple Saddam Hussein of Iraq, the
ADM is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Front and has four
representatives in the Kurdish Assembly, which governs territory north
of the American imposed 36th parallel in Iraq. In addition to having a
number of offices, including its headquarters, in Dahouk, Iraq, the ADM
has established centers in Syria, where it enjoys support from Jacobite
Assyrians, and Iran. In the United States, thousands of Assyrians have
supported the ADM, contributing financially and morally to its cause,
considered much more coherent and realistic than that of the AUA.30 The ADM
has reoccupied and restored a number of
destroyed Assyrian villages in north Iraq in the past two years.

"For the first
time since the fall of Nineveh [the ancient capital city of the
Assyrians] in 612 BC," stated one of the ADM's leaders in a
fund-raising dinner in Chicago, "Assyrians are building homes in
Assyria."31

Although
religious divisions still continue to divide the Chaldeans, Nestorians
and Jacobites, political animosities and differences have lessened, as
various social and political organizations have formed links and
alliances with each other. A good example of this is the Assyrian
Federation of Sweden (Huyada) , an umbrella body which has a majority
of Jacobite and a minority of Nestorian organizations as members.
Informal integration among the members of the various churches,
however, has yet to be fully realized.

In reviewing
Gellner's theory of nationalism below, the focus will be on the
Nestorian Assyrians, from whom the overwhelming majority of Assyrian
nationalist activists have come from, with the focus being mainly on
two historical periods to show the two stages of the nationalist
movement among the Assyrians. The first period, from the 1890s to 1914
in Urmia, is that which saw a blossoming of intellectual output, as it
were, of nationalistic ideas and conceptions; books and periodicals
were published, and an Assyrian council was formed. The second period
encompasses the First World War and its aftermath up to 1933, the year
in which the Assyrian national movement was formed and later crushed
violently by the Iraqi government.

GELLNER'S
THEORY AND ITS IMPLICATION

Ernest
Gellner's theory has been characterized as possessing elements of
functional and psychological theories of nationalism.32 The
psychological theory's usual point of
departure is to assume that the need to identify with or belong to a
entity larger than one's self becomes important in times of change,
when previous systems of identification are undermined.33 One's
identification with one's role in a village,
for example, becomes undermined when that village undergoes an
industrial transformation, which disrupts all traditional ties between
the inhabitants and changes the roles they once possessed. In such as
case, people of the changed village can no longer identify with their
roles, which have disappeared, but must find another identity - which
is ethnicity or nationality.

In functional
theory, nationalism is perceived to be guiding the rapid process of
modernization, by bringing the various divided factions - tribal,
religious, regional, etc. - together to build a significant population
ready to be mobilized by the state. Nationalism, in other words, exists
because it serves a purpose, a function.

Gellner begins
his theory by postulating that society has a 'structure' and a
'culture'. He defines relations concerning the role of a person in
society as part of structure, and those governing expressions, such as
dress, as part of culture:

The fact that,
for instance, property passes in the male line and that co-operating
groups are determined by agnatic descent, are facts concerning the
structure of a society; the fact that membership of a group is
signified by wearing a certain kind of cloth, and that marital status
is reflected in the manner of taking part in collective dances, is part
of the culture of the society in question.34

Both culture
and structure exist in all societies, but in small and simple
societies, Gellner notes, there is a much more developed structure,
"i.e. individuals are ascribed roles (often conceived in kinship terms)
which determine and circumscribe their activities and relationships to
others: fairly little is left to choice and fancy."35 Simultaneously, such societies have an
extremely
developed culture as well, and this tends to symbolize social position
in manner, conduct, ritual, dress, and so forth.

Where
relations between members of a society are fairly well known, 'all know
their place I as a result of the small size of the community, shared
culture is not indispensable, according to Gellner. It is "not a
precondition for effective communication." That is, if each person
knows where he belongs in the social order, he does not have to
communicate this fact about whom he is (what he does) to get along. "In
the stable, repetitive relationship of lord and peasant," states
Gellner, "it matters very little whether they both speak (in the
literal sense) the same language. They have long ago sized each other
up..."36
As long as people
know about each person's role in the social ladder, runs the reasoning
here, there is not much need for communication. This is why peasants do
not have difficulty, for instance, accepting the fact that their lord
is of a different nationality. They understand his position and he
knows about their status.

In larger
societies, on the other hand, structures tend to be less developed, but
they are not missing all together. Bureaucracy serves as kinship for
modern man, according to Gellner. And the intricacies of modern
bureaucratic terminologies, relationships and symbols rival the kin
networks of complex tribes. Yet in modern societies, one's role in the
community is less a part of one's self; " ... man is a man and not
fully identified with his role..."37 And although within organizations there
are
ascriptions of roles, persons living in the wider society are free to
embrace organizations of their choice and change when the desire
arises. Gellner notes that the majority of relationships between people
in larger societies are "ephemeral, non-repetitive, and optional." They
are more encounters than relationships.38

This has an
important consequence: communication, the symbols, language (in the
literal or in the extended sense) that is employed, become crucial. The
burden of comprehension is shifted from the context, to the
communication itself: when interlocutors and contexts are all
unfamiliar, the message itself must become intelligible - it is no
longer understood, as was the case in traditional societies, before it
was even articulated - and those who communicate must. speak the same
language, in some sense or other. 39

Whereas in
smaller and more structured societies, communication was not as
important, due to each person's knowledge of the other's position -
'before it was even articulated' - it is vital in larger societies, as
a person's attachments to an identifiable and established role fade.
This leads to an incoherence in understanding the self and other
persons in society, which then necessitates the emphasis on
communication, which identifies persons to each other. Since
communication is culture, culture becomes increasingly relevant as a
form of cognitive stability in the face of the process of
industrialization, which has caused the erosion of the various
traditional roles and structures. This erosion, states Gellner, is
"inherent in the size, mobility and general ecology and organization of
industrial society, or even of a society moving in this direction."40

The underlying
assumption made by Gellner here is that people need to comprehend each
other - and toward this end communication and culture serve a primary
purpose: to allow people to understand each other now that roles within
structures no longer seem certain and defined. This the case
particularly because industrialization brings about the changes that
alter and transform roles and break traditional ties between people.

Industrialization
and modernization proceed in two ways. First, they erode traditional
agrarian societies, as we noted, disrupting the intricate network or
structure of relationships, and, second, they strike various regions
and territories of the globe in an uneven manner, at dissimilar times
and with dissimilar impacts. It is this uneven and disorderly process
of modernization and industrialism, its "uneven diffusion," that is
associated with nationalism.41

To better
explain his theory, Gellner presents a model which outlines the
processes by which nationalism attains relevance. He visualizes
modernization as a tidal wave sweeping over the world, "a devastating
but untidy flood, aided or obstructed by pre-existing currents,
deflected or canalized by the rocks and sandbanks of the older social
world."42
As this tidal wave
moves, it passes over territories A and B, which are under one
sovereignty. The wave hits A first, which undergoes the necessary
changes. By the time A is approaching affluence as a result of
modernization, B is undergoing the peak of dislocation and misery that
are the symptoms of the approach of modernization. Now B is under the
same political umbrella as A. What happens to B in this case?

Gellner
postulates two consequences depending on the conditions. In the first
case, the people of B are culturally the same as A. They cannot be
physically distinguished as a collectivity - they simply live in a
region of their own. In this case, the men of B will become the lower
working ranks of the total society of A & B. Since the people of B
are culturally similar to A, they will not be excluded from the total
society, because there are no distinguishing traits that the privileged
members of A can locate in the members of B. Regardless of the class
differentiation that exists, no separation will occur.

... all in
all, it is likely that region B, though discontented, will remain
within the larger society, either awaiting the moment when the high
tide of prosperity reaches it as well, or anticipating events by
large-scale migration. 43

Thus the
people in B, despite, their economic difficulties and inequalities in
light of the people of region A, choose to remain a part of the same
collectivity, striving and hoping for change. They do not possess
enough cultural differences to set themselves apart.

In the second
case of Gellner's hypothesis, the people of B are radically
differentiated from the people of A. They are racially, and religiously
distinct, and so can be easily physically distinguished by and from the
people of A. In this case, the people of B will begin to form, or
reform, their own collective identity, "their discontent can find
'national' expression: the privileged are manifestly different from
themselves, even if the shared ,nationality' of the under-privileged
men from B starts off from a purely negative trait, i.e. shared
exclusion from privilege and from the 'nation' of the privileged."44
Furthermore the privileged of A seek to exclude
from their realm the ill-trained and poor people of B. The small
intellectual class in B, which cannot easily pass into A, will profit
from a detachment of land B from land A. If it succeeds in bringing
about a separation, it will monopolize the most desirable posts in the
newly independent B land.

The above
model points to two factors which are necessary in the formation of
nationalism. The first is the presence of economic and urban
competition between workers who either living are or have come to live
in an urban industrializing or industrialized center, where competition
for resources is strong, the second is the existence of a noticeable
and novel culture, from which a collectivity may draw its national
identity, and which may serve to exclude this collectivity from and by
another. A collectivity goes on to exclude another because A) it has
been excluded by a more privileged one, or B)it is the one that has
greater privilege and does not want to share it. Culture and
pigmentation, etc. (factors which render one group distinguishable from
another) have, of course, always existed. Their elevation in society,
however, has come with the penetration of industrialization and the
growth of competition for resources among people - as illustrated in
the above model by Gellner.

This is where
culture, pigmentation, etc. become important: they provide means of
exclusion for the benefit of the privileged, and underprivileged ...
Nationalism is not the awakening of nations to self-consciousness: it
invents nations where they do not exist -but it does need some
pre-existing differentiating marks to work on, even if ... these are
purely negative (i.e. consist of disqualifying marks from entry to
privilege, without any positive similarity between those who share the
disqualification and who are destined to form a new 'nation').45

Our focus will
be on the role of a novel culture and that of the causal relation
between industrialism and nationalism, and how it relates to the role
of intellectuals and proletarians - factors which Gellner perceives as
vital for the establishment of a nationalist movement.

THE
FORMATION OF NATIONALSIM AMONG THE ASSYRIANS

I. THE FIRST
PERIOD; THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS AND PROFESSIONALS IN URMIA 1890-1914

The combined
influence of the Western missionary activities and Russian military
advances into Iraq and Ottoman Anatolia affected the status and outlook
of Eastern Christians, particularly Nestorians. The Western
missionaries provided opportunities for education and economic
advancement, and the Russians gave the Nestorians a new political
confidence.

Over the
latter course of the nineteenth century and early part of the
twentieth, the Assyrian community in Urmia gained predominance as the
number of merchants, professionals and intellectuals grew. In the
outlying villages of Urmia, hundreds of schools were established, and
two colleges were built in the town of Urmia. Just as they had done
with the Armenians, the American missionaries played a decisive role in
the economic and educational advancement of the Assyrians.

"Gradually,"
states Arian Ishaya, "a professional class of Assyrians became
visible," staffing the various missionary establishments.46 By
1920, the Assyrians in Iran had the highest
rate in literacy of any ethnic group, 80% according to Charles Issawi.47 As
early as 1848, the Protestant sponsored
periodical Zahrira d'Bahra (Ray of Light) was published in Assyrian.
This periodical, among its religious essays, featured news clips from
all over the globe, bringing cosmopolitanism to its readers.

It was among
Western educated elite, including priests and bishops, such as the
French educated Catholic Mar Tuma Oddo, the Chaldean Bishop of Urmia,
that the espousal of nationhood took place in the 1890s. Pamphlets and
articles about the "Oumta" (nation) began to appear in the neo-Syriac
language. A number of nationalists advocated, and succeeded in,
reapplying the name of the Assyrians - by changing it from Syriacs (or
Syrians - not related to present Syrians) to Assyrians [Suryaya to
Aturaya], a change which symbolized the desire of the intellectuals and
leaders of the community that it was necessary to move away from the
religious constitution of the 'nation' and towards its secular
character. one of the best available source of information on the state
and perspective of the Assyrians - particularly the well educated -
prior to and during the First World War in the area of Urmia is the
periodical Kukhwa (the Star), a bi-weekly newspaper which ran from June
1906 to the Autumn of 1914, and then on and off again from 1917-1918.
Although other periodicals existed in Urmia, Kukhwa was the only
independent - not published through or sponsored by a Western mission.
Kukhwa was the first periodical to carry overt nationalistic messages;
news from Assyrians in the diaspora, lessons on history, essays on the
importance of national identity and the detriment caused by the
existence of a variety of Churches, to which the majority of the
previously Nestorian Assyrians had converted. It represented the voice
of the nascent Assyrian intelligentsia of the time, a group of American
and Russian educated young professionals; Dr. Fraidoon Bet Oraham,
Benyamin Arsanis, Dr. Baba Parhad, and Mar Tuma Oddo, among others. In
various articles and essays, these advocated a separation of church and
state,' a new sense of nationhood and national unity, and an awareness
of national history. It is worth quoting some of the essential goals of
the periodical here, as they were published in the first issue of
Kukhwa. The aims of the editors, it is clear, resemble the goals and
aspirations of nationalists everywhere; espousing national unity and
loyalty, condemning various 'subnational' (tribal, religious)
allegiances, and encouraging communication and education.

1.
The primary aspiration of Kukhwa is to unite the Millet, through love
and unity, which are the cornerstone of the Millet. Today we are not
one church, as we were 70-100 years ago. We no longer have
nationalistic [unifying) sentiments ...

Even
in spelling and publishing we are divided. This [unusual] case is not
found in any nation that perceives itself civilized ... there are
hundreds of such deficiencies that pertain to us Assyrians...

2.
To unite the nation through letters (communication), essays, and news
that find their way in this paper. Our people are scattered in Turkey
[Ottoman empire], Iran, Russia, and America. There are signs that this
diaspora will greatly increase, and year after year it will decrease
the numbers of those who still reside in their own homeland.

3.
kukhwa will strive to be a catalyst for the advancement of education
and culture; a forum for the exchange of nationalistic ideas and
discussions.

6.
kukhwa will not become a device for arousing and strengthening
denominationalism. We will not have the place or the opportunity for
the theological arguments - no room will be provided for polemics about
the greatness of one denomination or faith, and the weakness of
another. We are aware of [secular, nationalist) ideas and want these to
take greater hold in our hearts and minds: we are all the sons of one
nation, from the same flesh and blood and possess one language.

It
is our intention to elevate the ethics of our people, to indoctrinate
them into accepting the foundations and pillars that uphold our faith,
and which we accept without opposition.48

To
'unite the Millett' became an important endeavor for the intellectuals
once they had become aware of the 'advanced' nations around them, and
once the weakness which they possessed as a result of their divisions
became apparent. It was not so much the 'need for identity' as the
desire for empowerment by gathering.

Secular
and nationalist ideas had taken root among the intellectuals. Well
aware of the new political ideologies in the world, Assyrian
intellectuals felt that nationalism was a sentiment that would empower
a people -much like it seemed to be doing in the seemingly secular
West. It was the norm in the world, in particular among Europeans, who
were modernized and powerful. Not unlike the Arabist Christian Syrians
of Lebanon, the Assyrian nationalists sought to enlarge their 'base' of
operations, as it were, to transcend the religious and tribal
confinement, and reach the 'nation.'

What
made the nationalist ideas of the intellectuals all the more appealing
was the fact that denominationalism antagonisms had paralyzed their
community. An instructive example in how detrimental denominationalism
could be was is the case of the Assyrian Council formed in Urmia in
1906-1907. For the first time in Urmia's history, the various Assyrians
that lived in the city and in the hundreds of villages that surrounded
it, joined together and formed a council, consisting of 9 elected
members, to administer to temporal matters of the community and send an
Assyrian delegate to the Iranian legislature in 1907. Disagreements and
conflicts between the various religious groups within the council,
particularly between members of the Russian Orthodox faith and other's,
brought the council to ruins.49 Members of Kukhwa
editorial staff referred to the involvement of "foreigners" in Assyrian
affairs, and condemned denominationalism. Nationalism, with its promise
to transcend sub-national and religious barriers by making the 'nation'
the focus and not denominations or tribes, was the perfect solution.

"They
learned anew," states John Joseph, of Assyrian intellectuals disturbed
by religious divisiveness, "to cherish their language and historical
traditions in spite of the fact that their small community was split
into denominations antagonistic to each other."50 Indeed, a result of denominationalism,
Assyrians
concerned with the state of their community began to refer to a
mythologized history as a savior of sorts. The language and
'traditions' which were cherished were modernized to become compatible
with and aid nationalism. Glorious episodes in Nestorian history became
a point of pride for the now Protestant Assyrians.51 Later, Akitu, an ancient Assyrian
religious
festival, was revived as a nationalistic reminder. As Edward Shils
points out in an essay on the nature of intellectuals, the process of
enhancing a culture entails a rejection of the very cultural values in
various degrees of comprehensiveness.52 Ultimately, what this means is that for
nationalists, traditions are worthy only as they fill their role to
buttress nationalism, and history is as good as the good it does to
those who gain knowledge of it.

In
1911, Dr. Fraidoon Bet-Oraham (known as Fraidoon Atooraya, 'Fraidoon
the Assyrian') , wrote a polemical essay "Who Are the Syrians, and How
Should Our Nation Be Uplifted?, " in which he argued that the national
consciousness of a people grows in proportion to the young generation I
s knowledge of its forefathers, which was, in Dr. Bet-Oraham's opinion,
lamentable at the time. Bet-Oraham was educated in Russia, and for some
time lived in Tiflis, Georgia. Here he became familiar with the
advancement nationalism was making among the people of the region, in
particular the Armenians. In 1917, he wrote the "Urmia Manifesto For a
United and Free Assyria," published in a Georgian Socialist newsletter.53

Bet
Oraham's life was marked by discontentment, which manifests its self in
all of his numerous poems and polemical writings. A romantic and a
socialist, Bet -Oraham was an advocate, as were most of his colleagues,
of changing the ethnic designation of the Assyrian from 'Suryaya' which
had a religious connotation to it, to 'Aturaya' which was the term
largely used for the ancient, pre-Christian Assyrians. Aturaya came to
symbolize the process of secularization and renewal, both a search for
the 'lost past' and an abstract restructuring of the 'nation,' to fit
into the framework of nation states.

"If
we write truthfully," wrote Benyamin Arsanis, who was also, like Bet
Oraham, a Russian educated nationalist living in Urmia, "we as a nation
are nothing; we do not even possess a name. we very much resemble the
inhabitants of the forest, existing without pondering our identity."54
Arsanis, like Fraidoon Bet Oraham and other
Assyrian nationalists and educators, sought first to rethink or
'reconstruct' what it was to be 'Assyrian, I a step towards more
appropriately fitting into the world that surrounded them, a world
dominated by 'nations' and denominations or divided nations. Once
Assyrians transform their thoughts and ideas, Arsanis and Bet Oraham,
their actions will accordingly become transformed for the better.

Although
Assyrian nationalistic sentiments were more prevalent among the
Nestorians (particularly those in Urmia) than among Chaldeans and
Jacobites, nationalists were to be found among the latter as well.
Among Jacobites, one of the earliest nationalists, Ashur S. Yousif
(1858-1915), propounded nationalistic ideas similar to Arsanis, Bet
Oraham, and other intellectuals in Urmia. Educated by American
missionaries, he was probably influenced by both American evangelism
and Armenian nationalism. In the following passage, quoted by numerous
Assyrian magazines up to the present, Ashur Yousif's urgent call for
change is clear.

To
attain cultural development and progress among the
Assyrians, both as individuals and as a people, it is necessary to have
the highest ideal in life and to seek to realize it. And to reach this
goal, families also must bring forth children with a Christian and
national character who will serve the nation; and schools must produce
leaders. The church and the clergy should revive the pulpit, and with
fiery language and divinely inspired message extol the life of the
soul. And the wheels of the press should grind out newspapers and books
to promote the intellectual, spiritual, and national life of the
Assyrians.

Let
family, church, school, and press unite in this
spirit, cooperate and render mutual assistance, for it is only then
that this nation, which has embarked on the journey to self
enlightenment, will attain the supreme ideal in life, which it must of
necessity pursue.55

Among
Jacobites and Chaldeans, nationalism did not become a significant
movement early on. Other than a few intellectuals and professionals,
such as Ashur Yousif, adherents to it were too few. Among the clergy,
there was grave concern that nationalism would mean ruin. Chaldean and
Jacobite hierarchs possessed institutions that were too close to
Ottoman, and after the First World War Arab, seats of power. Members of
the Jacobite and Chaldean churches, unlike the Nestorians, were much
more integrated, both economically and culturally, within the larger
societies that surrounded them. For a time, after the First World War,
the Jacobite and Chaldean church leaders did seem to desire an alliance
with the Assyrian nationalists, particularly when President Wilson
encouraged new freedoms for various nationalities. The Jacobites of
America joined delegates of the Assyrian National Associations of
America at the peace conference in Paris. Mar Afram Barsoum, Jacobite
Bishop of Syria and later Patriarch of the Jacobite Church, was a
member of the delegation, but soon became disillusioned and began to
defend Arab rights instead of representing his people, and was
subsequently known as 'Qass al 'Urubal (Priest of Arabism) among Arab
nationalists.56
It was Mar Afram
Barsoum, who also stated his church's position on Assyrian nationalism.

"The
'Assyrian' name," wrote Barsoum, "is an English Protestant invention
going back to 1900 AD. It was bequeathed to the Nestorians in the
regions of Mosul in 1919-20 AD for a malicious political purpose ...
the Syrians have no interest whatsoever in taking to themselves this
strange name..."57 He further added
that the sufferings the Nestorians have endured are a result of their
nationalism, and if Jacobites wished to avoid the same fate, they
should dissociate themselves from Assyrian nationalistic activity.

It
is difficult to assess the influence of nationalist sentiment among the
ordinary Assyrian Nestorians of Urmia. The data on this subject has not
yet been found. Interviews with ordinary people done by Western
missionaries focus on religious matters and daily living habits. Among
the Hakkari Nestorians, no evidence of nationalist sentiments existed -
none were articulated in any known sources at any rate. Those who wrote
in Kukhwa and produced books and pamphlets in Urmia, however, displayed
their nationalism most clearly and articulately. Though the nationalism
of the intellectuals did not lead to any significant nationalist
movement - with foot soldiers so to say - it existed to propound its
ideas and perspectives, to be taken up by the leadership of the
Assyrians after the First World War.

II.
THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE ASSYRIAN NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

The
First World War devastated all Aramaic speaking Christians; Maronites,
Jacobites, Chaldeans, and -- in particular -- Nestorians. Although the
Nestorians had fought over 14 victorious battles against the Kurds and
Turks, the annihilation of their homeland was an inevitable outcome.
The people; maliks, bishops and peasants alike, suffered tremendously,
and thousands perished by the end of the War. In 1918, the majority of
the Nestorians had either fled to Russia or were living in British
"tent cities" in the central plains of Iraq.

Such
experiences of collective suffering gave the Nestorians a broader
perspective on who they were and why they had suffered. Horror gave way
to sorrow and then to feelings of injustice and betrayal by their
Western allies, who continually encouraged them, but failed to support
them in times of desperation. Tribalism began to dissipate as it became
clear that it was the entire "nation," not just a tribe, that was at
the brink death. Members of the various tribes, for so long isolated,
came into contact other tribes. marriages took place across tribal and
denominational lines at unprecedented numbers. A transformation of
culture - perhaps one could say its very birth - took place at this
time. Tales and folk songs told of persecution and injustice, and
reinforced feelings of solidarity among the refugee population. And if,
as Majid Khadduri words it, nationalism thrives on bad administration
and propaganda, then these two also came to intertwine at this time.58 The War
had uprooted the very social and economic
existence of the Assyrians, both mountaineers and Urmians. Homeless and
destitute, their anguish manifested itself in nationalistic demands
placed before the League of Nations and the British government.

In
1919, Assyrian maliks and community leaders elected Surma Khanim, the
sister of the Patriarch of the Church of the East, to represent the
Assyrian case before the League of Nations. Though she was received
most graciously, particularly by the British, she returned empty handed
back to her people. The opportunity for Agha Petros, the renowned
Assyrian military leader during the War, had presented itself.

Agha
Petros put forth a military plan that was accepted by a large number of
Assyrians. The plan, which many observers at the time considered
unrealistic, called for retaking the town of Urmia, turning West and
retaking the abandoned Hakkari mountains in Southeastern Turkey, and
from there heading West to the Mediterranean to form a thin stretch of
territory to include the Jacobites - all of this would form a small
Assyrian Christian state with access to the sea. The Assyrian troops
were to gather at Aqra, an Assyrian Chaldean village in north Iraq, and
from there proceed northwest to Urmia, station themselves at Urmia for
a short period, and head into the Hakkari mountains and reclaim the
former Assyrian territories.

With
British guns and ammunition, the 8,000 Assyrian troops began their
march in October of 1920. Kurdish resistance was easily overcome and
the road was clear toward Urmia. Unfortunately, a conflict between Agha
Petros and Khoshaba, commander of the Tyari tribe, caused a split in
the ranks. Khoshaba took the finest of the mountaineer warriors and
headed toward the Hakkari mountains, leaving Petros with a smaller body
of Urmian troops to fend for themselves. Unable to continue, Petros
turned back his failed expedition.

The
Assyrians remained hopeful that some sort of settlement regarding their
lands would be reached, and looked toward the British and the French
for assistance. Though they lived in relative peace in Iraq from 1920
onward, the Assyrian leadership's eyes were on British designs and
actions, as well as fearful of Iraqi Arab intentions. As the British
mandate in Iraq neared its end, Assyrian concerns about the future
state of their people were heightened.

In
1931, as noted earlier, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church, Mar Eshai
Shimun, called on all Assyrian bishops and maliks, as well as other
representatives, to a conference in Mosul in north Iraq to address the
future of the Assyrians. A petition was drawn up and submitted to
British authorities within Iraq (quoted above) . Soon after, a letter
was presented to the British Brigadier commanding the Assyrian Levies,
signed by all of the Assyrian officers, stating that all of the men had
decided to stop serving, because "the British Government had failed
adequately to ensure the future of the Assyrian nation after the
termination of their mandate over Iraq."59 The Assyrian Levies stopped serving on
July 1,
1932, and the British were forced to arrange for the First Battalion of
the Northamptonshire Regiment to be transported to Iraq from Egypt, to
temporarily staff Assyrian positions. The petition drawn up by the
Assyrian leadership was forwarded to the League of Nations in Geneva,
and Mar Shimun soon followed things up with a visit there. He was,
however, unsuccessful and managed to earn the wrath of the Iraqi
government and the displeasure of the British, whose interests now
rested with the stability of the new Kingdom of Iraq.

It
is needless to recount the historical episodes that occurred next,
after no agreement was reached between the Assyrians and Iraq. In
summary, the conflict came to a head in August of 1933, and ended with
the exile of the Mar Shimun to Cyprus, and the massacre of hundreds
(according to the British and Iraqis) , perhaps thousands (according to
Assyrian sources) of unarmed men, women and children - who had been
previously made to pledge allegiance to the Iraqi government.

The
Assyrian case was out of the public realm in Iraq. Within the Assyrian
community, however, nationalism, particularly as a cultural expression
in literary and artistic endeavors, continued to grow and propagate a
nationalist creed in the Middle East and in the diaspora, as well as
attract members of the Jacobite and Chaldean communities as Assyrian
nationalists, partaking in one history and culture - something
previously unimaginable, though all sects shared one ethnicity.

That
the Assyrian nationalist movement failed in Iraq does not nullify its
existence or its importance among the Assyrians, prior to 1933 and
subsequent to it. The Nestorian mountaineers and plainsmen of Urmia,
divided by tribe and denomination, now existed under one national name
and espoused a nationalist vision of someday having their homeland -
though many Assyrian nationalists understand this is unrealizable at
present

III
GELLNER AGAIN

Having
recounted the above nationalistic episodes in Assyrian history, let us
now turn to three points made in Gellner's theory. First, the rise of
the significance of culture and the need for identity; second, the role
of a novel or unique culture in the formation of nationalism; and
third, the impact of industrialization on the development of
nationalism, specifically as it relates to the involvement of
intellectuals and proletarians.

As
noted earlier, Gellner postulates a causal relation between the erosion
of the traditional order of roles, of the structure in a society, by
the impact of industrialization and the subsequent increase in the
importance of 'culture,' which he defines essentially as "the manner in
which one communicates in the broadest sense."

This
heightened relevance of culture in people's lives is linked to the
incoherence experienced by individuals in an environment that is
changing or has changed under the impact of the wave of
industrialization, which disrupts life by disintegrating traditional
ties and roles which people had.

Why
does culture become so meaningful to people? Gellner's thesis is
contingent upon the existence of man's need to understand himself and
those around him in some way or another, and man's need to belong to a
collectivity - a community - to have a nitch in society, a view he
shares with Elie Kedourie. Either one will have a position, a place, in
society, or he will seek it in other ways, according to Gellner.

If
a man is not firmly set in a social niche, whose relationship as it
were endows him with his identity, he is obliged to carry his identity
with him, in his whole style of conduct and expression: in other words,
'culture' becomes his identity.60

Man,
then, is "obliged" to possess an identity so as to fulfill his need to
understand himself and 'fit' as it were into some collectivity. There
are numerous authors, including many whose writings are on national
histories, who agree with Gellner. Albert Hourani, in writing on Arab
Christian intellectuals prior to the turn of the Century, noted that
upon separation from their native community, Western educated young men
desired to 'belong' to another community, one that would be recognized
by authorities and which they could comprehend as their own - the
secular "Arab nation" was that entity for many.61 A similar argument could be made about
the
Assyrian Nestorians of Urmia who left their native church for a number
of Western churches, and from whom came forth the intellectuals who
formulated the idea of the Assyrian nation stretching in time from the
depths of history to the present time, because they sought to identify
with that entity, since they could no longer identify with their
church. The Indian example cited by Nehru, about the Indian middle
class, is illustrative as well:

They
wanted some cultural roots to cling on to, something that would give
them assurance of their own worth, something that would reduce the
sense of frustration and humiliation that foreign conquest and rule had
produced. In every country with a growing nationalism, there is this
search apart from religion, this tendency to go back to the past.62

There
is little doubt that the above cases hold truth, particularly in some
situations; an international gathering where the flags and symbols of
nations are displayed, for example. A person may feel that he must
belong to one nation or another, and that he is somehow less than
others if he cannot so classify himself - and in modern times, nations
have been the legitimate categories of the world system. The
difficulty, however, is that the concept of this need to belong, or
this search for an identity, are not specific to nationalism. One can
also be a member of a Church, a cult, a club, and still satisfy this
need for identity and belonging in one way or another. Too, as Anthony
Smith points out, such notions ought to be viewed as habits and desires
rather than concepts upon which theories are built.63 The need to belong may of course be
prevalent
among peoples, but the difficulty in rationally analyzing it, states
John Breuilly, is what renders it unacceptable as a historical
explanation.64

The
next two points, according to Gellner, are essential for the promotion
of a nationalist movement. The first is the existence of a unique or
novel culture, and the second is the participation of intellectuals and
proletarians in the nationalist movement; the "two prongs" of the
movement.

There
is something to be said for the role of a culture which may set one
collectivity apart from another, both in the abstract and physical
sense. Of course this is not to say that cultural differentiation
breeds friction between collectivities, but that any type of collective
sentiment, nationalism included, will profit from the existence of a
cultural "wall" one collectivity may have around itself, which may also
be buttressed by economic relations.

In
his critique of Gellner, Anthony Smith is of the opinion that culture
does not disqualify a collectivity from building nationalism. Clearly,
however, one cannot cite an example of a nationalism which has no
culture/language (any pre-existing differentiating marks to work on).
It is difficult to imagine the Nestorians developing any sort of
nationalism without having distinguishable cultural traits; religion,
language, dress, and so on, to build on. There are, however, examples
of states that have (or will) over time 'forge' some collective
identity from the various ethnic and religious collectivities that
exist within them, by promoting popular festival, inventing traditions
and sponsoring various cultural programs. Modern Iraq is a good example
of both the success and failure of state sponsored national identity.
Iraqi nationalists have managed to promote a coherent idea of what it
means to be an Iraqi, yet efforts to bring together various ethnic
groups have also fostered rejection and rebelliousness, particularly
among Kurds and Assyrians.

Of
course it does not follow that one who is more "culturally and
ethnically" attuned, would make a better nationalist or a nationalist
at all. Nationalism, however, draws upon ethnic and cultural themes and
symbols to make its appeal; on historical glory, language, a unique and
truthful religion, the nobility of tradition, the beauty of the land,
and so on (leaving aside the very consequential matter of economics for
a moment) If these are not present in the 'collective mind' of the
people, they would have to be invented or conjured up. These are
factors which promote public interaction and communication among
individuals, and are thought to lead to a commonality - a oneness, even
if only figuratively - among members of a society or country.

The
Assyrian case illustrates how intellectuals evoked "memories" of a
pre-Christian past that transcended the religious, tribal and factional
divisions existing among the Assyrians of the twentieth century; the
very stress on the use of the name 'Aturaya' (which denotes ancient
Assyrians), by the intellectuals of Urmia, and the gradual abandonment
of the formerly common term 'Suryaya' (Syriac) is a manifestation of
this attempt by nationalists such as Fraidoon Bet Oraham, Benyamin
Arsanis, and Mar Tuma Oddo, among others, to rally around common
symbols of loyalty and abandon sub loyalties, such as tribe and
denomination. The nationalistic message was strengthened as the
Assyrians underwent the sufferings of the First World War, where the
collective experiences were bound into national symbols, as they
related to very real and impressionable experiences; nationalistic
writings, poems and folk songs predominated collective Assyrian
circles.

The
reason for the involvement of intellectuals and proletarians in the
nationalist movement, reasons Gellner, is that nationalism arises from
the uneven impact of industrialization/modernization, which causes
social and economic chasms.

The
uneven impact of this wave generates a sharp social stratification
which, unlike the stratifications of past societies, is a) unhallowed
by custom, and which has little to cause it to be accepted as in the
nature of things, which b) is not well protected by various social
mechanisms, but on the contrary exists in a situation providing maximum
opportunities and incentives for revolution, and which c) is
remediable, and is seen to be remediable, by 'national' secession.
Under these circumstances, nationalism does become a natural
phenomenon, one flowing fairly inescapably from the general situation.66

What
Gellner is referring to here is the consequences of the, perhaps
reasoned, interests of the intellectuals and the proletariat, to which
he refers as the "the two prongs of nationalism," which arise from the
change wrought by industrialization. For the intellectuals, the idea of
a separation, entailing independence or autonomy, means intellectual
opportunities, "jobs, and very good jobs."67 In most, if not all nationalist
movements, the
intellectuals - specifically the intelligentsia (for Gellner it is "a
class which is alienated from its own society by the very fact of its
education") - have played a vital role. Among the Assyrians, this was
certainly the case. The proletarians, on the other hand, "will exchange
hardships-with-snubs for possibly harder hardships with national
identification."68 It isn't made
clear as to why the proletarians will take greater hardships for
national identification, since it is perhaps not in their economic
interests to do so.

At
any rate, Gellner's lack of empirical data throughout his theory leaves
his emphasis on the role of the proletariat open to doubt. Anthony
Smith argues that although the proletariat may join a nationalist
movement, it is not a factor which if lacking would threaten the
nationalist movement.

The
Greek, Armenian, Serb, Czech, Italian, Hungarian, German, Turkish, and
Arab movements, generally led by the intelligentsia, comprised various
combinations of other social groupings officers, peasants, civil
servants, small traders, the haute bourgeoisie, priests, artisans,
gentry, and even aristocrats ... The peasants of Burma, the officers in
Egypt and Turkey, the priests in Rumania, the pig dealers in Serbia and
the Philike Hetairia in Greece founded by wealthy merchants, are
familiar examples of enthusiastic supporters of nationalist movements
... One looks in vain for a Kurdish, Naga, Burman, or even Palestinian
proletariat, playing a decisive role in these highly developed
secessionist movements.69

Smith
cites empirical data based on a survey [done by Lerner, p. 124, in
Anthony Smith's Theories of Nationalism, 1983] on Syrian and Egyptian
workers who flocked to the cities in 1950-54 period. It was found that
these workers were relatively indifferent to the goals of their
nationalistic leaders, wanted economic reform and found the symbolism
of class more meaningful.70

Further,
John Breuilly notes that it is dangerous to rely on the idea of urban
proletarian competition as an important component in the formation of
nationalism.

Urban
competition among different cultural groups can sustain communal
nationalism, but equally it can undermine territorial nationalism. Such
divisive urban nationalism is certainly inimical to nationalism as a
religion of modernization and, in fact, can give rise to precisely
those 'sub-national' loyalties which Gellner argues it is the job of
nationalism to combat.71

In
the case of the Assyrians of Urmia, there certainly was no significant
worker group to speak of, a group that would lend itself to the
nationalist cause. Nationalist sentiments and expressions remained
mostly within intellectual circles, manifesting themselves in various
periodicals, booklets, and flyers of the day. At any rate, nationalism
is never a movement that involves in any comprehensive and ardent way
more than a relatively small segment of the populace. As John Breuilly
points out, it "is usually a minority movement pursued against the
indifference and, frequently, hostility of the majority of the members
of the nation' in whose name the nationalists act."72 The lack of a significant proletariats
group did
not seem to have hindered the formation of nationalistic sentiments
among Assyrians, nor the attempts to acquire a homeland or autonomy
after the First World War. No doubt, the arrival of nationalistic ideas
and views among Assyrians had much to do with the dramatic changes that
were taking place within the community and outside of it. Some of these
changes could be perceived as part of the process of industrialization,
but most were the outcome of regional and international political
movements and maneuvers. One example, cited above, was the Russian
advance against Persia and Ottoman Turkey prior to and during the First
World War.

The
nationalism of the Assyrian intellectuals of Urmia prior to the First
World War, furthermore, was not the natural outcome of the process of
industrialization and its consequences per se, but a conscious
articulated view learned and assimilated from the nations neighboring
the Assyrians, namely the Armenians, and from the Europeans whose
contacts with the Assyrians grew over time. The idea of the nation
represented empowerment in an age of rapid change, and later the
upheaval of the First World War. The reception and adoption these
nationalistic sentiments were certainly made easier by the changing
environment - the growth of schools and other educational institutions
- and the collapse of the traditional Assyrian church in Urmia. Later,
the First World War and its tragic aftermath for the Assyrians added
real dimensions to the rhetoric of the nationalists, who had been
calling for the unity of the nation; the Assyrians were now a displaced
people in need of a homeland.

There
is a difficulty with speculating that nationalism - or even the concern
with identity - arises out of the process of industrialization. Change,
however, in a myriad of forms, causes intellectuals to evaluate and
re-evaluate thoughts. This is no guarantee that nationalistic sentiment
will result - it is not a natural outcome of a given set of factors.
Nationalism, rather, is one historical phenomenon which is aided by
change - one form of which is industrialization - but which must be
learned by example, and received depending on the ripeness of the
social, economic and political conditions.

CONCLUSION

Nationalism
is the product of social, Political and economic change - but the idea
of it,, in some form must be previously articulated. It cannot merely
arise from a set of given conditions - as outlined by Gellner - if it
is undetected and unheard of previously. That nationalism did originate
in Europe as a result of the arrival of industrialism (which led to the
disintegration of traditional structures and the subsequent creation of
new structures) described by Gellner, is not an applicable theory to
any nationalism, it is merely a good description and historical lesson
- a truism - and may or may not occur again given the same
circumstances.

The
idea of the 'need for identity' or 'belonging' to a group, though it
may have existed in some cases of nationalism, does not contribute to a
theory of nationalism. In the Assyrian case, as pointed out, the desire
- perhaps the need - of the intellectuals and leaders was to unify and
modernize the people; to empower them in a new age. There is not the
evidence to show that nationalistic sentiments were a search for
identity, per se.

The
propagation of nationalism does not depend on a particular class or a
coalition of classes. There is no evidence to suggest that the
proletarian class can somehow comprehend, or adhere to, nationalism
more than peasants, for example. Nationalism can be the rallying point
for the poor and wretched as well as the rich who would like to
preserve their distance from a poorer people, seeking to use their
wealth to exclude, as pointed out by Gellner. For this to come to pass,
the distinguishing factors of culture, religion, pigmentation, and so
on, need to be present.

There
seems to be an exception to the relation of class and nationalism. From
all examples cited, intellectuals seem to be needed for the
articulation of national consciousness, at least in the initial stages,
as they possess certain skills which can be employed to formulate
ideology and organization. In the Assyrian case -- as well that of the
Armenians, Arabs, Jews, among others --the intellectuals played
important, if not crucial roles, in the development of a nation's
national consciousness.

12
According to Malik Yaqub
Ismael of Upper Tyari, the patriarch of the Church of the East gained
prominence in tribal affairs after the Badar Khan massacre of
Assyrians, as Kurdish-Assyrian relations deteriorated and Assyrian
maliks increasingly came to rely on the mediation of the patriarch (In
Yaqub Ismael's Aturave-oo-Tre Plashe Tweelave (Assvr.ians and Two World
Wars), Tehran, 1964, p. 15-16.

13
Coakley, J..F.; The Church of
the East and- the Church of England; A History of the Archbishop of
Canterbury's Assyrian Mission, p. 39

26
A number of prominent Assyrians attributed the subsequent difficulties
that Assyrians were to have in Iraq to Mar Eshai Shimun's refusal to
negotiate directly with Faysal, and instead rely on the British.